Hedge Fund Group Battles Proposed SEC
Registration

September 16, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - An
alternative investments trade group is pushing the notion
that new US hedge fund registration rules not apply to
advisors already regulated in their home country.

>The
Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA)
made the assertion Thursday in a
letter
sent to
the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has
proposed requiring most hedge fund advisors to register
with the commission (See
SEC Staff Formalizes
Hedge Fund Recommendations
).

>Causing hedge fund managers domiciled or primarily
doing business in another country to register in the US
would have a ”
considerable and onerous likely impact on non-US fund
managers and other interested parties, in terms of
additional and significant regulatory burden and costs, ”
AIMA wrote.

“We havesubmitted that local regulators, who are in
constant contact with local industry practitioners and
service providers, are in a better position to regulate
and perform supervisory examination,” AIMA officials
wrote. “We have also suggested that the SEC might learn
more about the global hedge fund industry by continued
cooperation and sharing of knowledge between established
regulators already supervising this industry.”

“If the SEC were to have the power to make examinations,
we anticipate that your already strained resources would be
further severely stretched,” AIMA continued. “Having regard
to how hedge funds are structured and that they operate in
varied ways, sometimes with subtle variations, from
jurisdiction to jurisdiction, we submit that the local
regulators, who are in constant contact with local industry
practitioners, including industry service providers, are in
a better position to regulate and perform such
examinations.”